Jeff+R

Welcome to Jeff's Wiki.

Try these helpful links. [|Classblogmeister] is a great site for students to write their creative pieces and publish them electronically. [|http://www.classblogmeister.com]

Excellent writing prompts can be found at [|http://writingfix.com]

[|Unitedstreaming] is a great site of video clips that can be embedded into powerpoint presentations. [|http://www.unitedstreaming.com]

[|Poets.org] is a great site to hear audio or get the words to famous poems from this past century.

[|http://www.poets.org]

“Whales, ships, and pirates, oh my!”

By Jeff H. Roper

Thinking about vacations—one was particularly great. Vicky and I went on a 2 week driving vacation to the East Coast. This was before we had kids. We spent three days in Washington, DC, one day in Philadelphia with friends, one day of sight-seeing in NYC, and one day with friends in Boston, MA. The next day was unbelievable. We went north of Boston, a famous shipping village known as Gloucester. There we signed up for and went on a full day whale-watching boat—10 miles off the Massachusetts coastline. I look at the old model ship I just purchased in the Wichita antique store—I imagine the whaling voyages of Melville and the 1840’s out on the open water. I hear a waterfall cascading behind me…I drift off. “Maties, check this out!” There seems to be a cave behind this waterfall. I get out of the water and begin walking on the shoreline besides the waterfall. “It sure was nice of the Captain to give us these two days of rest and relaxation on this South Seas island in the middle of nowhere.” I go with Jack, Tom, and Ned—barefooted in our wet shorts, we walk carefully along the wet mud oozing between our toes until we get behind the waterfall; amazingly, as the third mate suggested, there was a decent-sized cave behind the liquid avalanche. Here at 12:00 noon there was enough light to give light to the cave's opening. We look around but it gets too dark the farther we walk into the cave. Somehow, Ned has managed to bring a match and a candle which he lights; the three of us wet urchins creep slowly behind Ned’s candle. We come to a fork in the cave—we must go left or right. Ned asks which way?—instantaneously everyone else says “right,” but I say “left” probably because I’m left-handed. Ned looks at me with his dark tan and bushy brows with the long knife cut scar down his left cheek. Ned says, “left it is.” We can barely see. The tunnel gets smaller and smaller. We duck a lot and shuffle through places like goslings following the mother goose closely until Ned asks “What’s this?” He brings the light closer, revealing a rectangular chest on the floor of the tunnel. My God. We’ve discovered a pirate’s treasure. I wake up finally after drifting off. The ship is in the light blue bay mixed with all sorts of aqua marine colors. The bay is nestled in a gorgeous white beach cove. I must have been dreaming about treasure and adventures. No, I wake up again. I’m in a hotel lobby in Old Town which has a pool of running water where wealthy guests throw their pennies for good luck. Oh yes, here I am with my SCKWP writing fellows taking a cool break from the hot Kansas sun while writing in my journal.